A Villains Journey
by EnduringAncient
Summary: After 10 years in tartarus maximum security prison Axel Kaiser is released back into the free world to find out the heroes who locked him away are now in the top 4 positions.
1. Chapter 1

The sound of a prison officer raking his baton along the bars of my cell woke me from the nightmare I was having, something I was thankful for.

"Rise and shine, looks like your times up kid, time to go home."

I looked up to see the B-blocks warden. A large man with a gut to match.

"I'm up, I'm up, and I haven't been a kid for a long time old man."

I mutter groggily to myself while rubbing the burn marks covering my right arm, which still hurt even now ten years later.

"Quit muttering to yourself, hurry up and get out we need this cell, the hero Deku just took down a big shot villain and we need this cell for that guy!"

I flinch at the mention of the name "Deku" and begin gathering my things.

I'm led out of B-block patted down in the security room and let out into the parking lot. The door slams behind me and I'm free, for the first time in 10 years I'm not restricted by walls. But I have no idea where to go from here, I guess I could go back to Hosu City.

I'll just live a quite life and keep my head down. I glance around and spot a bus stop nearby, looking at the timetable a bus to the city should stop here in a few minutes.

I feel around in the black jeans I was given from the prison's lost and found for the money that was confiscated from me when I was first incarcerated here. I don't have much but I should be able to afford the fare.

I sat at the bus stop for over 40 minutes without any bus in sight and was beginning to give up on the bus when someone sat next to me.

"I heard you were getting out today."

Surprised I turned to look at the person who had just spoken and jumped back off the bench after noticing the red and white hair.

"Been a long time hasn't it Axel, about ten years at my count." The man says casually.

"Yeah that sounds about right, long time no see Shoto." I respond cautiously keeping my distance getting ready to use my quirk if needed to defend myself.

He puts both of his arms up into the air and smiles. "I'm not here to fight and if this was ten years earlier I probably would of lost. But they had you filled up on quirk suppressing drugs for the last ten years and I've had a lot of practice."

I lower my hands to my side realizing he's right, my quirk would have made me a lot more difficult to stop if I decided to break out one day. So they gave me a choice take drugs to suppress my quirk or spend my ten year sentence in solitary confinement, the choice was easy. After my failed attempt at taking over U.A I had no drive or ambition left and served my time quietly, keeping to myself.

"Yeah you're right I don't think I can even really use it properly yet, might be a bit unstable at the moment." Hearing it out loud it's annoying but it is the truth, I'd have to actively train to get back to my old level.

"I just came here today to get an idea of what your intentions are now that you're free." Shoto asked in a plain almost uninterested way.

I shrugged, honestly I had no idea what I was gonna do my only options were going to a shelter for the homeless, I had nowhere to go. "I don't know honestly, I'll have to visit the memorial and pay my respects."

"What? You think you have any right to even approach the memorial, after all you did?" His outburst made me flinch in my state if he wanted he could easily freeze or even incinerate me, but even still I responded angrily.

"Do you really think you guys were the only ones who lost friends that day?! I lost everything Shoto, the only woman I ever cared about died that day during my fight with Deku!.." I stopped myself turning away from him catching myself before saying anymore.

"If you wanna stop me from visiting the memorial and the graves then you might as well kill me now." I say just loud enough for him to hear.

"Okay Axel I'm not here to fight, Ill be telling Katsuki, Izuku and Iida that you're out of prison, so be careful around Katsuki he's always been talking about getting back at you for what you did to his arm." After giving me that warning he turns and walks into the prison as the bus arrives.

As I walk up the steps of the bus I remember hearing that Shoto had a brother in Tartarus, he must have timed visiting his brother with me being released.

"Hey kid! You getting on or not?" The bus driver, a almost squid like being asks from the driver seat.

"Awh yeah sorry, how much is it to Hosu?" I ask reaching into my pocket for the money I had on me.

"It's free for ex-prisoners so just hop on so we can get moving." Surprised, I nod and head for one of the seats in the middle.

We cross the long bridge connecting Tartarus to the mainland and I decide to catch some sleep on the long drive so I close my eyes and nod off.

I open my eyes and I'm standing in the principles office of U.A the principle is lying in a puddle of blood with his back against the right wall and Aizawa is hanging out the window to the left, blood is splattered all over the wall next to him.

"Axel open the door we've beaten all your goons and we'll bust down this door in no time so just give up!" A familiar voice, Katsuki's voice, I want to move to the door and let them in and beg them to forgive me but I can't move.

The door explodes inwards scattering shrapnel around the room, a piece slices across my face under my left eye leaving a scar that's there to this day.

Katsuki and Todoroki enter the room spotting the principle and Aizawa on the floor, both of them raise their arms to use their quirks. I try to raise my hand to defend myself with my quirk, but when I do nothing happens and I'm consumed by flames and an explosion.

I jump up waking from my sleep to see the neon signs flash by through the windows.

"Last stop coming up gather your things and disembark." Came the gruff voice of the driver over the intercom.

I made my way to the front of the bus waiting to reach the stop when the driver spoke up. "If you're looking for work or somewhere to stay I suggest signing up for the Volunteers they don't pay you but they'll give you a place to stay and give you food."

"The Volunteers?" I ask, this is the first I've heard of them.

"Yeah that hero Deku set it up so people who couldn't make it into U.A could have a chance to use their quirks for the good of the community." He responded.

"Yeah that sounds like Izuku alright, I might just look into it so. Never thought I'd end up working for the guy who put me behind bars, but it does sound like a good deal." The driver seemed caught off guard by this.

"Well this is my stop, hey what direction is the U.A memorial field?" I ask the driver as I step off the final step.

"It's about a mile straight ahead." He responds.

I thank him and begin heading in that direction when multiple explosions start happening in this direction followed by a black shape running through the debris and smoke, I recognize the black shape as a renegade Nomu.

I run back to the bus door to warn the driver. "Hey a Nomu is heading thi..." I stop half way through after realizing one of the explosions must have launched a stop sign through the air, as one was currently jammed through the front window and pierced through his chest.

I turn away to see the Nomu had now almost reached the bus. I look around expecting a hero to pop out at any moment, but the closer the Nomu gets the less likely that seems to occur.

I raise my hand and try to activate my quirk but it doesn't, I can't activate it, I needed time to practice, this is too soon I can't us it yet.

The Nomu spots me and begins running towards me.

It seems to be a gorilla type one with a large exposed spine going down it's back.

It's run has at this point turned into a sprint.

Panic begins to set in when a scream erupts from across the street. The Nomu stops almost immediately and locks on to where the scream came from.

I round the front of the bus to see a little girl next to a unconscious woman. I sprint over and manage to get in between the Nomu and girl. I raise my hand again, I have to use my quirk now I can't afford to be this weak any longer.

The girl begins quietly crying as I stand there, she keeps mumbling through her crying that her mom is dead and its her fault and her mum would be fine if she didn't need to be shielded.

I turn just as the Nomu lunges. I turn grab the girl, wrap my arm around the woman's waist and push off the ground with all my strength.

I just manage to barely avoid the attack but the force from the impact hit me while mid air knocking the two out of my arms sending us another meter or two.

I raise my arm once more, now I was beginning to get angry.

I can feel the anger build and notice my arm turning a shade of red. That's the first sign of my power activating something that requires immense concentration and my arm to be pointed at my enemy so it has a direction.

I can feel my muscles begin to twist and stretch under my skin as my quirk begins to manifest if only a weaker version of it.

I can hear my bones snap and shatter as my body begins to give way under the pressure of using my quirk, I need to find something to use as a weapon before my quirk tears my body apart.

"Mister whats wrong with you?" The little girl asks confused as my body jerks and spasms. I just shakily grin reach out and grab onto a streetlight.

My grip tightens and I manage to tear a shard out of it. The vision in my left eye turns red as a blood vessel pops in my eye.

I stood up as straight as possible, immense pain raging throughout my entire body. I had now gained about two feet towering above the crouched Nomu, the red pigment had now spread over the surface of my skin and my normally silver long hair had turned a deep orange, my nails had grown to an inch long on both hands, my vision was fading quickly, my muscles bulged and flexed under my skin, my bones had shattered and reformed adding several inches and my teeth were now replaced with long fangs.

The quirk which I hated so much had now activated, my quirk Warp Spasm was your generic strength booster which completely altered my physical form and gave me an insatiable lust for battle, at this point I could only use it for another few seconds before losing consciousness and risking going into a unconscious berserk rage, so I had to act fast.

Gripping the shard of steel I darted towards the gorilla Nomu, cracking the floor with every step. The Nomu beat its chest and leaped through the air towards me, I was out of practice but was confident I could beat the beast.

The beast collided with me and tried to grapple me but I managed to avoid a solid grip, grabbing it's wrist with my free hand spinning it in half a circle, letting go so that it flew through the air colliding with the passenger section of the prison bus.

The Nomu pulls itself out of the bus and sprints at me now wielding its own shard of metal, in a move of rare tactics seen in Nomu it launches the shard through the air managing to slice through my upper arm leaving a deep gash.

My blood sprays out of the wound momentarily before slowing to a trickle, my unreliable healing factor kicking in. The blood lands on a bench next to me melting through it almost instantly reminding me of how unnatural my quirk is compared to even the most unnatural quirks.

A fist collides with my stomach knocking the wind out of me in my moment of distraction, the pain being converted into blood lust even though I know that blow would still hurt later as the pain was only numbed and converted.

I thrust forward with my outstretched palm, my nails acting like small spears, I strike true piercing the chest and ribs a hairs length from the heart.

The beast grabs the wrist of the arm I stabbed him with an proceeds to crush my forearm, blood spurting out onto the creatures hand from where my bone pierced up through the skin.

My blood immediately begins dissolving the flesh of the Nomu's hand, it screams in anguish as its flesh melts from its muscle and its muscle in turn melt from its bone.

This sight spurs my blood lust on as I drive the shard deep into the neck of the Nomu causing it to pierce through to the other side. Unable to contain the insanity quickly consuming me I burst out manically laughing, next thing I know I'm standing above the corpse of the heavily mutilated Nomu.

A large pool of blood surrounds it and someone is slowly approaching me with an arm outstretched. They keep repeating something but I cant hear them. My eyes widen as I realise I must have lost control as I was now back to my normal form.

I turn back to where the little girl was, she is on the ground a few feet away sitting up looking at me with what can only be a look of pure horror. I reach out to her and she recoils a scream louder and more shrill than when she saw the Nomu and when she thought her own mother was dead escapes her lips.

"I tried! I tried being good, I tried helping them and I saved them!" I scream to the heavens hoping that somewhere she'll hear and answer me, that she'll give me a sign.

I let my hand fall back to my side as I suddenly feel light-headed. "I will always be the villain I guess."

"Axel? Axel is that you?" A voice that was muffled until now calls out from behind me. I turn to see a person dressed like a humanoid green rabbit and he finally comes into view.

"Deku?" I say as I keel over onto my hands and knees while puking up an unhealthy amount of blood before blacking out.


	2. Chapter 2

An echo, someone was shouting, but it sounded distant as if it were far away but at the same time was getting closer and closer by the second. But this was just another dream I had yet to awaken from when I passed out after using my quirk.

This was obvious as I was yet again standing back in the U.A's principal's office a common scene for my dreams and nightmares alike.

This time only Katsuki was here with me and he was saying something. That was when I realized the distant shouting was coming from him.

"Katsuki I can't hear you, what are you saying?" I say groggily as if it would ever reach him. He just continued to shout at me but it was definitely getting louder, loud enough to make out some words.

"You…..son…..Axel….mother….kill." As soon as I made out these words the volume went straight to eleven and the words erupted from Katsuki.

"You goddamn son of a bitch Axel, you motherfucker I'll kill you!" He screamed bringing me out of the nightmare only to look into the face of the real Katsuki.

"Finally awake eh? About damn time now I can pay you back for my arm!" He shouted as soon as my vision cleared, his voice echoed through my head. I grabbed my head as a pounding headache set in as I glimpsed the stump where his left arm should be.

I raise both arms in a defensive show of peace as I try to reason with him.

"Katsuki my quirk doesn't let me go back in time but if it did, I'd go back and stop what happened. I lost control back then, even though I was trying to take over the school I thought I could control my quirk and as we saw I was sorely wrong."

A look of hatred crossed his face as he reached forward with his right arm grabbing me by the scruff of the neck and pulling me in close.

"You think I really care about my arm? You think I actually care that I'm stuck in fourth place for the rest of my life because of you? No Axel, 18 of our classmates and 4 teachers died that day, that's on you and no one else. Not the goons you used as minions and not that monster you become using your quirk, you and only you and I hope that haunts you for the rest of your life. You can beat a nomu here or there but you'll always be the same deep down and when that you comes back and he will, I'll be there to end you."

He shoves me back down onto the bed and storms out of the room.

I look around realizing I have no idea where I am, then it hits me before I blacked out I saw Deku could this be a hospital, although it doesn't look like one.

A knock on the door catches my attention, I turn to see a woman with long brown hair standing in the doorway, she looks different with the long hair but I recognise her.

"Ochako? Is that you?"

A look of contempt crosses her face and then she responds.

"Yup the one and only. Can I come in?" It comes out subdued as if she's holding back, but it's clear enough to hear. I nod in response to her question, one of her arms is in a cast and she has a bandage around her forehead.

"You're injured, are you okay ?"

She stops before reaching one of the chairs close to the bed and looks at me confused.

"Axel don't you remember ? I'm the woman you saved from the Nomu."

I had no idea, I was mostly focused on saving the little girl.

That's when it hit me.

"Wait the little girl? She's your daughter? Dammit and I exposed her to such a sight at such a young age…..She was terrified, last thing I remember aside from Deku is her scream."

She nods and responds.

"Yeah it's tough for anyone to see that side of you, especially when in a fight, but she's fine she doesn't remember much of what happened so it's okay."

Her words calm me a bit, she always had that effect on me for some reason always able to reassure me when things were getting rough. But I could sense the anger in her words.

"Who's the father? But I suppose I can guess."

She nods.

"Yeah it's Izuku, we got married 4 years ago and Ozuku was born the same year."

Odd name but I guess I'm no one to judge with a name like Axel Kaiser.

"Where am I by the way if you don't mind telling me."

She looks around for a second or two.

"This is the headquarters of The Volunteers, we are in the medical wing. Izuku is busy with damage control after the Nomu rampage and I have to go back to Ozuku before she wakes up but you can look around by yourself if you want."

I nod and she leaves without a goodbye leaving me alone in the room by myself. I get up out of bed and am suddenly hit with immense pain in my right arm, probably hasn't healed fully from being crushed by that Nomu.

Making sure to be careful with my arm I make my way over to the window which has a nice view of a large courtyard with a large statue of All Might in the centre and further ahead across the road is the Memorial Field.

There's spare clothes on one of the chairs in the room, I change quickly being careful with my arm and head to the door but stopping with my hand an inch from the handle.

Katsuki was right, I'll have to live the rest of my life fighting against this perception already placed on me, I turn and walk over to the window. Five stories from the ground, that'd be more than enough to end it all, then I can make up for it in hell.

My foot is on the window sill and I'm lifting myself up onto it when I look and see her across the way in the memorial field.

I almost crack the window sill pushing off it towards the door in a sprint, slamming the door open and running into the hallway.

The building has the general makeup of a hospital with reception desks every so often, but I'm smart enough to be able to find the stairs despite the mad dash I was in to find the exit.

I reach the stairs and push through the door and take the stairs two steps at a time all the way down to the bottom floor, thankfully if this building has a basement then these stairs didn't lead to it otherwise I would've ran straight down into it missing the ground floor.

There was a bunch of costumed people in the main lobby I presumed they were the volunteer heroes. Some of these people might've been U.A graduates united by Deku for the greater good of the world.

But none of that mattered to me I just had to get to the Memorial field cause that's where she was the only person who could have stopped me from jumping to my end is there I saw her, I did with my own two eyes, well that was the case till someone used the name I hated.

"Is that the Berserk Villain Riastrad what the hell, I thought you were in prison." I stopped almost immediately, as if All Might himself had just stood in front of me.

You see Riastrad was what I chose for my hero name but after my failed coup the media turned it into a symbol of fear, and yeah I originally tried my best at being a hero but life never turns out the way you think it will.

I turn to face the person who called me out. Some big oaf staring me down, some wannabe thug who probably thinks he's all that now that he's a semi-official hero.

He looks me up and down and scoffs.

"You ain't so tough looking, I bet I could beat you in a fight!" He loudly announces to the entire room.

"I don't have time for this, don't you have some rubbish to be picking up or something?" I was beginning to get irritated now.

I turn away containing my anger and run out of the lobby catching the sound of his angry retorts going nowhere.

I quickly forget the idiots remarks and make it out of the courtyard and across the road to the memorial field.

As I had expected and feared she wasn't here, all that was here was a piece of marble with her name on it. I fall to my knees next to her gravestone.

"I can't do it without you, you know that right? Katsuki is right maybe if I actually stepped off that window sill I'd be able to see you again, instead of being an idiot and running over here expecting the past to just change or something. They even use a term that relates to one of my homelands greatest heroes as a term to fear because of me, I adored that hero so much that when I found out my ability was similar to the one he had I thought I'd honour him but instead I just turned it on it's head didn't I."

A big shadow was cast on the grave and I turned around but was grabbed and pulled away from the grave and tossed to the floor.

"How dare you come anywhere near here, this memorial is here because of you and you think you can just come near it, this memorial is for the families whose lives you ruined not for you to sob over."

I look up to see the guy from earlier standing above me.

"Mind your own damn business, what I do is none of your concern!" I snapped back at him, even though I know deep within me he isn't wrong.

"I only get one of these a month but I'm using my forced combat privilege if it means knocking you around."

I have no idea what he means by "forced combat privilege" but it doesn't sound good.

"Now follow me so we can get this over with!"

Reluctantly I nod and follow wanting to just get this over with...whatever this was.

He leads me back into the Volunteers headquarters, through the lobby and out into a center courtyard he tells me to wait while he walks over to a console in the corner.

After a minute the ground begins shifting and the building begins completely restructuring until the center courtyard has formed into an arena the size of four tennis courts next to each other, I look around and smile.

Deku really out did himself this time.


End file.
